Deputy
opposition leader Kem Sokha inched a step closer to prison on Friday as
the Court of Appeal upheld a September verdict sentencing him to five
months in prison for failing to appear for questioning in a
“prostitution” case.
“I’m very disappointed with the decision to
uphold the decision against my client,” said Hem Socheat, one of Mr.
Sokha’s five defense attorneys. “This case has all the signs of being
politically motivated.”
Mr.
Sokha, who has been housebound at the CNRP’s Phnom Penh headquarters
since May to avoid arrest, did not attend the trial, but Mr. Socheat
said his client would appeal to the Supreme Court later this month.
Authorities have said they will not arrest Mr. Sokha until the high
court reaches a verdict on the case.
The
Ministry of Foreign Affairs again on Friday accused the U.N.’s human
rights office of interfering in its sovereign affairs after the body
demanded an explanation for government directives exiling opposition
leader Sam Rainsy.
Wah-Hea Lee, country representative for the
U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said
last month that the decision to ban Mr. Rainsy from returning to
Cambodia was “unjustified and arbitrary” based on available information.
“The
decision needs to be urgently explained—although the chances for any
explanation to be considered acceptable by the U.N. Human Rights
Committee are slim—or reversed,” she said.
In a letter dated
Friday and sent to U.N. resident coordinator Claire Van der Vaeren,
Foreign Affairs Minister Prak Sokhonn said the comments “crossed the red
line of the UN Charter…underlining the respect for sovereignty and
non-interference.”
The minister said the remarks, sent in an email
to The Cambodia Daily, also violated the Vienna Convention on
Diplomatic Relations, which says that business with the government is to
be conducted through ministries and not through the media.
“I
have noted with deep regret that while the OHCHR has explicitly refused
to mention the respect for sovereignty of Cambodia, its representative
in Phnom Penh has continued interfering into the internal affairs of the
Kingdom of Cambodia,” the letter said.
The memorandum of
understanding between the Foreign Affairs Ministry and the OHCHR expired
almost a year ago, and the government is refusing to renew it unless
additional language is added about respect for sovereignty and
non-interference.
Mr. Sokhonn’s letter said that until a new deal is reached, the OHCHR had no legitimacy.
“In
the absence of a valid Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the
Royal Government of Cambodia and the High Commissioner for Human Rights,
the current operation and activities of the OHCHR in Cambodia,
including those of its Country Representative, are not legitimate,” Mr.
Sokhonn said.
Ministry spokesman Chum Sounry declined to comment on what that meant for the office’s operations in Cambodia.
Ms. Lee did not respond to a request for comment.
As
his trial began on Friday, Suth Dina, Cambodia’s disgraced former
ambassador to South Korea, scattered the blame for his alleged misdeeds
on his predecessor, government ministries and his four accusers at the
embassy.
“I request Samdech…Hun Sen, the head of state, to acquit
me,” Mr. Dina said, addressing the prime minister—to whom he was once a
personal adviser—through reporters gathered at the Phnom Penh Municipal
Court. “I am innocent.”
Cambodia’s
former ambassador to South Korea, Suth Dina, arrives at the Phnom Penh
Municipal Court for his corruption trial on Friday. (Siv Channa/The
Cambodia Daily)Since Mr. Dina’s arrest in
April, the Anti-Corruption Unit has publicly accused him of extensive
graft, including taking kickbacks from migrant workers, pocketing fees
paid for visas and failing to pay rent on the embassy in Seoul. The unit
also raised suspicions over his ballooning personal wealth, which it
says increased by as much as $3 million during his three-year tenure in
South Korea.
His trial on Friday, however, boiled down to $116,995
in embassy revenue that he had failed to transfer on time to the
Foreign Affairs Ministry, an allegation that led to charges of abuse of
power and unlawful exploitation. Both charges carry a sentence of two to
five years in prison and a fine of 4 million to 10 million riel, or
about $1,000 to $2,500.
Prime Minister Hun Sen’s eldest son, Hun Manet, talks to the media at
the Phnom Penh airport last month after returning from a trip to
Australia. Pha Lina
In August 1989, as Hun Manet was nearing his 12th birthday, his
father was in Paris, piquing the international media’s attention as the
gangly young prime minister leading the Vietnam-backed Phnom Penh
government in talks to end Cambodia’s bloody civil war.
Cambodia’s Hun Sen: In Phnom Penh, Vietnam’s ‘puppet’ finds his voice, proclaimed a headline in the New York Times,
which noted the ex-Khmer Rouge guerilla’s growing self-confidence as he
traded barbs with then-Prince Norodom Sihanouk, head of the resistance
and 29 years his senior.
Hun Sen, remarked the newspaper, had grown from a “tongue tied”
27-year-old to an “articulate and unintimidated” prime minister of 38,
who, for young Cambodians who had little memory of Sihanouk’s reign,
“represents modernity”.
Relatives of a drug kingpin killed during a shootout with
military police in April testified in court yesterday that the drug
dealer was actually a police officer.
During the military police raid at a house-front roast duck business
in Tuol Kork, one police officer was killed, three others were injured;
alleged gang leader Lim Kim Teng was also killed. Five other people
were arrested at the scene.
On the first day of their trial yesterday, judge Ros Piseth
questioned three of the accused – Ly Vireak, 37, Ly Kokhuy, 64, and Ti
Ieng, 45 – charged with drug trafficking, being members of a criminal
gang and illegal weapons possession. Both Kokhuy and Ieng, the uncle and
brother-in-law of Kim Teng, respectively, said Kim Teng was a police
officer.
“He was a policeman at the Ministry of Interior,” Ieng said during testimony.
Indeed, during the initial operation, police reported confiscating two vehicles – one of them an Audi with police plates. In court yesterday, the judge mentioned two cars were confiscated, but said they were a Lexus and a Highlander.
Officials at the Ministry of Interior could not be reached for
clarification about the vehicles, or whether Kim Teng was indeed a
police officer.
Vireak, the other man questioned, admitted to working with Kim Teng
to distribute drugs, and said he had led police to site of the raid.
Kokhuy and Ieng, however, both denied all charges, saying they were
just cooks at the duck restaurant, which police maintained was just a
front, with the ducks themselves used as delivery parcels for
contraband.
Students of murdered political commentator Kem Ley have raised
$30,000 from the sales of two books compiled from his allegories and
other writings, and yesterday began donating 1,000 copies of the book to
university libraries around Phnom Penh.
Hang Vitou, a former student of Kem Ley, who had been giving lessons in analysis until he was murdered on the morning of July 10, said one book contains the long political “jokes” written by his former teacher, while the other had more academic writings.
“Providing these books is to urge readers to read Kem Ley’s work and
his ideas related to social problems and their solutions . . . and to
promote the hard work he did while he was alive,” Vitou said.
He said a total of 20,000 copies of the two versions would be produced, with 14,000 already printed.
The sales of 11,000 of those raised about $30,000, he said, while
another 1,000 had been set aside as free copies for people who could not
afford to buy them.
“The money will be donated to Kantha Bopha Hospital, to Kem Ley’s
mother and his wife, and the rest will be for our team to continue Kem
Ley’s work,” he said.
Vitou said copies of the books would also be donated to the National
Library. A librarian there, Yorn Sokha, said that she welcomed the
donation and that it would be put on display for the public.
Thirty activists from the Boeung Kak and Borei Keila
communities submitted a petition to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s cabinet
yesterday asking for officials to solve their long-running land
disputes, stop using violence when they protest and to free imprisoned activist Tep Vanny.
The activists submitted the three-point petition to Kong Chamroeun,
an official in the cabinet, who asked them to file their request about
Tep Vanny as a separate petition.
“I will make a new petition, and he asked only one or two of us to
submit it [again]. If it is beneficial for Vanny, I will follow the
instructions,” said land activist Bov Sophea.
The activists then went to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, where
fellow activist Nget Khun, known as “Mummy”, was being questioned for
allegedly making death threats and public insults.
The complaint was filed in 2012 by Ly Mom, who was a fellow activist
at the time. After a falling out with other activists, Mom filed a
complaint accusing Vanny, Heng Mom, Chheng Leap, Kong Chantha, Tol
Sreypov and Khun of threatening her life.
“I said I had not cursed or intended to kill,” said the elderly Khun,
after the questioning. “It is unfair for me because I am incapable of
using violence on others.”
